Access to land and housing has long been a bone of contention in Guyana. One can always be regaled with tales of how expansive and fertile our land is. What is often left out however is how distribution is largely racialized and inaccessible to those who are poor.
Instead of examining the social and economic reasons behind the inability of many to own land and housing, significant blame is instead placed on the individuals themselves. This fits into strongly held ideas of meritocracy that rewards individual attainment and frames collective empowerment as a socialist pipe dream.
Those who are poor are seen as deserving of their circumstances. The callousness reserved for them is centred on beliefs that they did not hustle hard enough, prioritize well enough and certainly did not produce as much as they should have. If it is one thing our culture teaches us, it is that we must be grinding 24/7 in order to deserve a decent life where essentials such as food and shelter can be provided. To fail to meet those standards reflects not on the exploitative nature of landlords, corporations and governments but rather on the ones who cannot bear the cost for existing.
This latter narrative is the one that the current administration has found it fit to hoist itself upon. They hide behind the excuse of the illegality of the landless seeking refuge, while excusing the illegal measures being taken to remove them. There is an urging to do things the right way; an urging that reeks of privileged insensitivity. Many are still yet to figure out what is right about flooding out lands to displace a people who have already been displaced.
The flooding of the lands, dismantling of structures and the violent force against residents and their
young children is criminal and dangerous to the wellbeing of our citizens. We do not hear much about the right way to do things in these cases though. We get so tied up with ideas of what is legal and illegal that we tend to justify that which is unjustifiable. Is it that some crimes are more just than others? One would be inclined to believe that, given how some people, true to Orwellian philosophy, are certainly more valued and protected than others.
Amongst the many reasons those who are poor are despised both by those within their class and the more fortunate, is due to the fear of staying in or ending up in the same circumstances. If it is that one’s impoverishment can be blamed on the lone individual, then there is hope for others that if they continue to grind and live according to set standards, they will be able to escape a life of poverty. Work hard and reap the benefits, a myth we still actively buy into without recognizing many do work extremely hard but are never rewarded due to lack of certain privileges.
Despite this reality that hard work does not equate to financial or social rewards, the inability to provide is still used as an excuse to inflict atrocities upon those who are poor as they are seen as deserving of it. This is why the prevailing narrative that is being set out against informal settlers at Success is that they are illegal land grabbers who simply do not want to work for their own. In framing the landless as criminals, it sets the stage for the turning of eyes away from the crimes committed against them in the name of development.
It is quite telling how the tale is spread that many of these settlers have options and are there by choice. The decision to find shelter in informal settlements is a last resort for those who have no other option. Forcing them out often results in increases in our homeless population with heightened rates of food insecurity. Many of these settlers have faced job losses, evictions, abuse and other threats that saw them becoming a part of the rapid growth of many informal settlements. What they need is help that empowers them, not condemnation and violent threats to their physical and mental health.
As politicians are wont to do, there have been attempts at utilizing the plight of the landless at Success for their own political mileage. The Opposition is seeking to make it solely about the current administration’s disregard for those who are poor. Certainly, the current administration’s oversight and frank dismissal of the floods and police violence inflicted upon these persons must be condemned. In the midst of a pandemic, after trying to force settlers from their structures through various violent means, they now expect them to seek housing in an enclosed school structure. All while our health systems continue to crumble and COVID-19 cases and deaths continue to climb. It is apparent that they have no regard for lives they do not believe they can profit off in some way.
The Opposition however must not be given a free pass to act like heroes in a story that they have also played the role of villain. They too have been unsympathetic to the plight of the landless, dismantling bridges and knocking down structures all in the name of development. The one thing that can be said is that it never reached the excess seen under this administration, but that is a very low bar to want to measure one’s self against. True consideration would have seen more efforts at regularizing informal settlements and attending to the backlog of land applications. What both the Opposition and ruling administration continue to make clear is that their priorities lie with those who can provide them the promise of money and power, no matter how mythical that promise is.
